Meaning
A person who habitually stays up late and feels most alert or active at night, typically at the cost of early mornings. The term is neutral and often self-applied, standing opposite the early bird or lark. Neutral and often affectionate or self-descriptive, with no remaining ominous connotation. Regional use: General English.
Origin
The word began in the 16th century simply as a synonym for the bird, with the first record in 1581 in Bell and Foxe's translation of Against Jerome Osorius; since owls are nocturnal anyway, that literal use was tautological and has faded. The figurative application to people began at the same time: the earliest cited example is Shakespeare's The Rape of Lucrece (1594), 'The dove sleeps fast that this night-owl will catch', though there the predatory Tarquin is the owl. Shakespeare also used the bird sense literally in Richard II (1593) and Twelfth Night (1602), and Collins registers the word as 16th-century. The sometimes-repeated idea that the expression grew out of the older night crow is not supported: night-crow was a separate old name for nocturnal birds of ill omen such as nightjars, not an earlier form of this term.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- a real night owl
Usage Examples
- A lifelong night owl, she answers email at two in the morning.
- The hostel schedules quiet hours late because most guests are night owls.
- He became a night owl in graduate school and never readjusted to office hours.